The Nail Houses series (2018) was inspired by architectural holdouts and their photographic records circulated on the internet. Mediated through drawings that become reference points for paintings, a paired-down pallet of black, white and cadmium yellow transforms these homes under siege into moated castles, hilltop citadels or towering blocks. Situated between presence and absence, they are of no place and every place and that’s the point. These small almost recognisable things might be picked up in the hand or tower overhead, unanchored, nothing is clear-cut on contested land. As paintings they too are stubborn nails, tip-toeing on unknown territories of power, haptic interventions against erasures on digital platforms or city streets, they manifest a slow archival resistance.

Nail House - Between one reality and the next (slip slide parallax 70x80cm 2018

Nail House - Ladder, oil on canvas 50x50cm) 2018

Nail House : Scapegoat, oil on wood panel [40x60] 2018

Nail House Grid

In a grid of 12, the nail houses portraits are more interchangeable - a sequence of objects or things that can move around the grid - each one becomes part author of the next. In the grid the singular adds to a force, becomes part of a chain, one sets the other in motion, and each one imagines the next. The reduced pallet of black, white and cadmium yellow is shared across all 12 paintings [12x30cm] - a shared system of reference.